RMS Releases Germany River Flood Model

Risk Management Solutions, a Newark, Calif.-based provider of products and services for the management of natural hazard risk, released its probabilistic Germany River Flood model to assess both off and on-flood plain risks, to price and underwrite policies and manage portfolio aggregations.

Losses on the major river floodplains and losses caused by off-floodplain flooding are represented in the model, which employs a numerically-based long-term rainfall simulation methodology that captures flooding to all the major river basins of Germany: the Rhine, Weser, Elbe, and Danube. Time of year, soil conditions, temperature, evaporation, and topography are among the factors accounted for in a time-stepping rainfall-runoff methodology.

Modeled flood depths take into account the presence and failure of defenses, and the impact of flooding and deliberate use of flood water storage areas in reducing downstream flows. In addition, a Digital Terrain Model allows flooding behavior to reflect complex topography, including changes in surface elevation and roughness.

“Germany has experienced several episodes of catastrophic flooding since the early 1990s, most recently with the devastating events of summer 2002,” said Jorg Muller, vice president of the Continental Europe industry practice group at RMS.

Rather than building discrete event sets for each individual European country, RMS has developed an event set covering Western and Central Europe, extending from the United Kingdom. through Scandinavia, through France and Germany, and across the Alps. As the company continues to roll out flood models for additional European countries, this pan-European approach will allow clients to model the correlation of risk between modeled countries throughout the continent.

For more information, visit http://www.rms.com/.

Topics Europe Flood Germany